October and Pumpkins: A Quest is Born

 Hello lovelies, Lindsey here. I know I haven't posted in... well, ever. I was a little busy getting a job, working, meeting my Awesome Boyfriend, moving to work at a new job to live closer to Awesome Boyfriend. Working too much at my new job, changing Awesome Boyfriend's name to Best Fiance Ever, planning our wedding, getting married, moving in and unpacking., decorating, and organizing our home; also, changing Best Fiance Ever's internet name to Best Husband Ever, and changing my real name.... needless to say, it's been a lot.

This guy is pretty distracting, hence my blog absence.

​​HOWEVER! It is now October. There is something important you should know about me. I love pumpkin. I directly attribute the fall pumpkin craze that has taken over the world in the past couple of years to myself, and my two college friends K. Lowe and Sarah R. Eleven years ago on one fall night, after jumping in leaves, we decided to have a pumpkin party, to celebrate all things pumpkin. We had it on my birthday, which is October 29. Every year since then the Pumpkin Party has become my birthday party, except last year when life got a little derailed and I spent my birthday at a funeral and then driving nine hours to get back to my then Awesome Boyfriend, who planned a great birthday for me, including a counterful of pumpkin treats for me from himself and his mom, who at the time was not even quite my Future Mother in Law, so she was just really sweet to get me any birthday gifts at all.

​Anyway, this year I decided to do posts in October about the pumpkin treats I make. This weekend is the Semi Annual General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. If you don't know what that is, it's five two hour sessions of leaders from the church (the Prophet, the Apostles, and other church leaders) teaching and speaking from the pulpit. These sessions are spread out over Saturday and Sunday. I don't know why, but most Mormons have the tradition of having Conference Cinnamon Rolls for breakfast as they snuggle down at the beginning of October or beginning of April (because Conference happens every six months) to watch the broadcast of these sessions.

The first two sessions of today have just finished. There is a third priesthood session tonight starting at 6 PM Mountain Time. You can watch it online at lds..org if you'd like (click on the name of the church above and it'll take you to the website.) Tomorrow morning the first session will start again at 10 AM Mountain Time. You can see why Conference Cinnamon Rolls would be perfect and appropriate..

So, I decided that I would make Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, to start Conference and October off right!

As husband would say, we have enough Pumpkin Pie Spice to sink a battleship.

​Now I am going to be very upfront with you and tell you the recipe I found was terrible. Pinterest Let me down. Big Time.

I started last night finding this recipe, reading the blog where the writer raved about the deliciousness of it, then I commenced following her instructions to a T.

The dough was too dry. That made me nervous and I thought about adding liquid, but it was sticking together so I thought I'd leave it to rise and see what happened.

I covered the dough, and left it in a warm place and came back to it 2 1/2 hours later just like the recipe said... and the dough had not risen...

Well.... that's okay! I thought. I mean, it had risen a little, so I'll roll it out, fill it and roll it up and cut it and then they'll proof over night and in the morning I'll pop them in the oven and they'll be delicious.

Sad, gross dough

​​I don't know why I kept going except I had already gone to all that trouble so I felt like I should see it through. That's the same reason I kept reading Twilight and that didn't turn out well either. (I hate those stupid, stupid books.)

Here is a picture of the dough not rolling up. I gave up and tossed it into a bundt pan and decided that now I was making pumpkin pull apart bread.

My thoughts at this moment were, "I mean... really??"

In the morning I drizzled it with cinnamon honey and put it in the oven. I had hope it would turn out okay because the butter I had put in the center had soaked into the dough and softened it up a little more.

It came out of the oven and I cut out a piece and took a bite, and was severely disappointed.

It was not good. You couldn't taste the pumpkin. There was some weird after taste to the dough. It didn't taste like cinnamon or pumpkin or sugar or butter or... anything good.

All those ingredients, wasted!

I don't even know what that is.

​Don't worry, Best Husband and I had bought some pumpkin eggnog last night so we had that (I felt like in the Pixar mug was appropriate) and I whipped up a quiche and I made a decision. I am going to create my OWN Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll recipe. It's going to be delicious, and I am going to do it tonight and we will eat them tomorrow (another day of Conference so it's not too late!) Then I will post my recipe here.

Kroger brand pumpkin eggnog gets a gold star from Best Husband and I. It salvaged our pumpkin morning!

​Come back tomorrow to find out what happens with my Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll test recipe tonight. Hopefully it'll turn out great and I'll be posting while happily enjoying the heavenly bliss of a soft, warm, delicious, pumpkin-y, cinnamon-y, cream cheese frosting-y Conference Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll!